1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a digital broadcast receiving apparatus that receives a digital broadcast signal of digital broadcasting such as BS digital broadcasting or the like, and transmits and receives data to and from a bidirectional server for response related to a received broadcast program via a telephone line or the Internet, and a communication information transmitting method that enables data transmission and reception between the digital broadcast receiving apparatus and the bidirectional server on the basis of a common method (processing procedure) described by a data broadcast description script.
2. Background Art
Digital broadcast receiving apparatus such as digital televisions (hereinafter referred to as DTVs), set-top boxes (hereinafter referred to as STBs) and the like have a bidirectional communication function realized therein to receive a digital broadcast signal of digital broadcasting such as BS digital broadcasting or the like, and transmit and receive data to and from a bidirectional server for response which server is related to a received broadcast program and owned by a broadcasting station, for example. For the bidirectional communication function, a BASIC procedure of X.28, which is a communication standard for peer-to-peer communication using a 2400-bps modem, is currently employed in performing data transmission and reception between the digital broadcast receiving apparatus and the bidirectional server.
Recently, in view of advantages of the development of Internet networks in that high-speed and inexpensive communication can be realized and congestion can be dispersed, for example, there has been a desire to realize the above bidirectional communication function by performing data transmission and reception via the Internet on the basis of TCP/IP instead of the conventional data transmission and reception via a telephone line on the basis of the BASIC procedure.
Even if digital broadcast receiving apparatus have the function of performing data transmission and reception via the Internet, not all broadcasting stations can change over to an operational form using a bidirectional server for the Internet as a response server. The broadcasting station side, on the other hand, needs to maintain a form of service for data transmission and reception based on the BASIC procedure in consideration of convenience of users using existing digital broadcast receiving apparatus. Therefore, in order to realize the bidirectional communication function in digital broadcast receiving apparatus, a method (processing procedure) for realizing a form of communication based on the BASIC procedure must be described in data broadcast contents transmitted by a digital broadcast signal using a digital broadcast description script. In order to realize also a form of communication based on TCP/IP in such an environment with operational limitations, it is necessary to describe a method for realizing the form of communication based on TCP/IP and also describe a processing procedure for changing between the methods as required according to communication means of the digital broadcast receiving apparatus. Thus, it takes time and labor to create an overall method for realizing the bidirectional communication function, and cost of creating the method becomes high. Incidentally, in the following description, the bidirectional server for the Internet will be referred to as a bidirectional WEB server as appropriate to be differentiated from bidirectional servers for telephone lines.